Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
In the conduction of Maze-type procedures, an ablation catheter is used to ablate heart tissue to attempt to clear heart arrhythmias. Generally, a dot ablation is made and this is repeated by re-positioning a tip, ablation electrode of an ablation catheter. This is an extremely time-consuming process. The temperature of the tip electrode also needs to be carefully maintained to ensure that it does not result in excessive ablation of the tissue occurring.
If a clinician could form longer lesions, fewer manipulations would be required. This would reduce the time to conduct the procedure, which would be beneficial for all concerned. A difficulty with forming longer lesions is maintaining the temperature of any longer electrode during the ablation procedure.